


For Our Light and Momentary Troubles

by spellingwasp



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Also we're inventing a country, And trying our hand at making more of a culture for Anderfels, F/F, F/M, M/M, Shoehorning a bunch of characters in and messing about with the plot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-20
Updated: 2017-09-20
Packaged: 2018-12-31 22:53:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12142884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spellingwasp/pseuds/spellingwasp
Summary: The story, as it turns out, is never the WHOLE story.Or: Augustus Trevelyan is considering the merits of passing out flyers that read "YOU DON'T HAVE TO GO HOME, BUT YOU CAN'T STAY HERE".





	1. Einarr & Magnus

**Author's Note:**

> So one lovely Australian evening not so terribly long ago, my best friend Heath and I went "Oh God we have all these DA OCs, what should we do with them--"
> 
> And eventually, we came to the conclusion that shoehorning them into the events of Inquisition (and just a bit prior) would be an excellent idea (don't question our levels of intoxication) and seeing what havoc they could wreak would be heaps of fun. As it turns out, we were right: at least it's heaps of fun for US. 
> 
> In summation:  
> -This follows the basic premise of Inquisition with some major and minor changes, but the plot will remain mostly the same. Some characters' roles will be slightly altered, but we promise we're working with the outline we were given...FOR NOW.  
> -We HAVE invented a country (it will only come up a few times, for the purists in the audience).  
> -I'll be doing my best with an Anderfelian culture (which Heath honestly left entirely in my hands, the bastard); I'm pulling inspiration from Poland-Lithuania with a dash of Ukraine in there, if things start to look a little familiar.  
> -The plot hopskotches up and down the timeline a bit, but we try to be precise about When and Where with *jazzhands* Context Clues.

Spring trickled in through the ice floes and then boorishly shoved winter and its serene elegance aside for the squalor of mud and eye-searing green.

Einarr could smell it, in those early mornings; the air stank of fresh rot and new growth, the dappled sunrise light playing golden over painted walls that depicted the rise and fall of Avvar heroes and traitors. His eyes traced the fading outline of stooped Maferath in defeated repose before he silently threw his heavy blankets aside. His parents still slept–but they were old, by human reckoning, and brittle to the cold and damp. 

He carded his fingers through his sleep-tangled hair and set himself to braiding the longer locks with deft, practiced motions; Mother’s hands had been too arthritic for years to manage it and he honestly thought she mourned it more than he. He stood and quietly padded to the waiting bowl of water sitting on their low table. The water was limned with frost and bitterly cold as he splashed some on his face. He stoked the fire and a fresh tunic was donned, his daggers carefully inspected for rust and dulled edges and then sheathed, his bow restrung and quiver strapped securely to his hip.

As he went to the door, he paused before turning back and bending to tuck the bed furs around his mother more tightly.

Spring thaw could be far crueler to old bones than harsh winter. 

But better that he not wake them, he decided as he closed the door behind him. His  _business_ was not in the least respectable–and while they said nothing, he felt their disapproving looks and heard their disappointed murmurs late into the night. 

It kept them fed, Einarr argued with the voice in his head that sounded suspiciously like his father, during the winter months when game was scarce and the pass to the Hold was blocked with snow. It kept them from starving when their only source of food was the lowlander caravans that passed through on their way to the formerly-abandoned Skyhold.

Besides, it was little concern of his if the gold he paid with had formerly belonged to their scouts and mercenaries. If they paid better, they could hire better. But that  _would_ make his life more difficult. 

He stepped lightly on the melting drifts of snow, his slight weight barely leaving a track. He circled around deep gouts of mud thaw when the snow melted away to bare ground with a grimace of disgust. But the mud had its uses–it showed clearly several sets of boot-prints and overlapping wagon wheel tracks frozen into the earth after last night’s cold snap. A dawning season meant a surge in traffic–

“And business will be booming,” Einarr murmured. He pushed a wayward curl behind a pointed ear as he circled a likely-looking fir. Not too tall, but still wide-limbed and lanky. Foliage thick enough to obscure him from view on the road. With a pleased hum, he jumped for a low-hanging limb and swung himself upwards to perch on a thick branch and wait.

(Waiting was, perhaps, the least glamourous part of the job description.)

While he waited, Einarr’s pale eyes drifted to the viciously green tear in the sky’s centre. It seemed to tremble some days, roiling like gathering stormclouds with thunderheads flashing in its murky depths. Other days he lost whole hours to staring into it and sometimes startled awake, half-afraid that he might somehow fall upwards into it. Mother feared, righteously, for the Lady; Father more pragmatically wondered if rain that fell from such a sky might poison them. Einarr silently wondered if such a breach might swallow the sun whole.

Two hours had passed, marked by the sun’s progress through the ruined sky. Einarr cupped his hands over his mouth and huffed into them, chafing them together for warmth. Not long after, a figure broke through the distant line of trees. Einarr straightened slowly, eagerly, focusing his gaze on the man plodding through the knee-high drifts.

Another Avvar, clearly, but unfamiliarly clothed in Hold colours that Einarr did not know. He was well-armed with an war-ax that shone smartly in the morning light. His clothing was richly embroidered in bright reds, and tattoos twined and swirled heavily down the full length of his thick, bared arms. A  _rich_ Avvar man, at that. 

Einarr shifted on his branch, crouching cat-like on it with one hand poised over the dagger sheathed inside his boot. The man was obviously too strong to take on hand to hand, so he would have to strike fast and break away to the cover of the trees to escape with what gold he could grab. 

The man slowly,  _maddeningly_ progressed closer until he was passing beneath the boughs under Einarr’s feet; Einarr tensed, ready to spring–

–and then the branch broke under him.

 

* * *

 

 

Singing can help veil loneliness, creating the illusion of some semblance of company.

It had crept slowly, gradually, and as a small and subtle thing, but it dawned on Magnus that morning: dwelling for too long by his lonesome made him uncomfortable.  He had never been an introverted man,nor had he ever spent so long away from his Hold.  It was a very new thing for him to deal with, and growing accustomed to his own company took longer than he would have liked.

With so much time for introspection, Magnus found himself singing songs, both traditional as well as spontaneous originals.  He’d occasionally talk aloud, chirping about random topics for hypothetical conversations with friends that weren’t currently present.  It was a comical sight, especially when he worked himself up by having heated, supposedly one-sided debates (that he always won, naturally).

This morning, Magnus filled the quiet with an old tune: a children’s song of Maferath that his mother would hum to him as a babe. He clicked his fingers to an imaginary beat, his gloved fingers muffling any chance of sound.  The clicking was habit more than anything else, and it gave his hands something to do.  His voice was a deep, thunderous reverberation, as if recreating the voice of the cloud-tipped mountains themselves.  His chest rumbled like distant winter thunderheads coming to roost.

 The bite of last night’s frost had been especially unforgiving: with aching bones, he awoke into a deep-set bitterness, having to take a moment of letting his blood reheat and thaw out each extremity.  He shifted with a groan, curling and uncurling his cold fingers into fists.  His joints cracked as if they’d been frozen into the position that he'd fallen asleep in.

 Rugged up in his camp, it would be easy to mistake him for a bear: he was a large man with a thick bear pelt wrapped over his broad shoulders, turned inward to hide his nose from the chill.  Maybe that was more accurate either way; a creature hibernating in a ravine crevice by the riverside.

 Magnus’ start was slow and his breakfast dry, but with routine practice he managed to continue on his path before mid-morning. His snapping fingers created soft thuds, as did his feet, with the beat carrying his low murmurs just as his pack carried the belongings of his deceased compatriots.  The man’s singing was quiet, but the snow muffled it regardless: la natural insulation to any danger that would have otherwise heeded his approach.

 As it turned out, Magnus didn’t have to be heard, for he was seen regardless.  The Avvar was fortunate that he was such a lucky man, because if it weren’t for the mistake of his watcher in the trees, he’d easily be left in a state for dead—if not killed immediately.  It was hard to tell whether he was looked after by the Gods themselves or whether his staunch, unbreakable confidence always twisted fate to work out for the better.  Maybe it was neither…maybe it was just uncanny coincidence.  He never let himself think about it too much—he’d work things out as they came, one at a time.

Trudging through the deeper snow didn’t break his cheeriness, nor did it disturb his song. Fortunately, he was used to such conditions,and his legs moved slowly but without hindrance. His mother had always likened him to that of an ox, saying that she should sell him for hire to lowlanders so that they could strap a field-plough to his wide-set shoulders instead. He’d surely work for longer than most beasts, she’d say.

The elf falling atop of Magnus came as a complete surprise. His first instinct was to extend his arms and catch the man, stepping back and away from the thick branch that dogged his descent and crashed to the ground with a spray of snow .  Magnus’ singing had stopped, and he stared at the—well, what appeared to be another Avvar with genuine, surprised curiosity.

 "…huh.  How ungraceful."

Einarr froze in the other man’s hold, limbs akimbo and his eyes wide with shock. 

_Betrayed_. 

He’d been betrayed by his fucking  _tree. His favourite fucking tree._ Future kindling, a new bedframe for his parents,  _toothpicks–_

He glanced his bow a few metres overhead, caught in a tree branch and tantalisingly out of reach ( _thrice-poxed_   _syphilitic lice-ridden root-rotted_   _liver-spotted_   _bastard of a tree_ ), the long daggers strapped to his back trapped beneath him, and thinking better of grabbing for the knife concealed in his boot and making a break for it. 

_Your fool neck would be broken first_ , a voice that sounded eerily like his father echoed darkly in his head; he grimaced inwardly, having to agree. The human’s biceps alone easily dwarfed Einarr’s head. No telling what sort of havoc the hands they were attached to could wreak on his tender neck. To fail was to fail and  _flee_ ; to be caught was to die, usually by merciless, unsparing inches. He doubted his ability to set himself loose now and to lose the man in the woods; he’d be too easily tracked in the snow and there was nowhere to run except home, and he refused to subject his parents to that. 

(He mostly refused to subject his mother to that; he refused to subject  _himself_  to an afterlife part and parcel of his father moaning and pissing away about the karmic retribution that came of raising other people’s children,  _elf-blood-will-tell_  and other such shit.)

In any case, a course of action: his weapons were unavailable to him, he couldn’t very well  _flee_ , and be damned to the noble spirit of Badh-catha if he was going to die here like some common highwayman or wastrel bandit cur. The list of options available to him were more slim than a willow wand, and yet only mere seconds had passed since his fall.

Einarr chanced a quick upward glance to the disgustingly massive human holding him up, taking note of the lack of aggression in his open features and added that to his calculations. There really was little choice.

He’d just have to brazen his way out of it.

Instantly, Einarr’s face smoothed out to a look of supreme unconcern; he crossed his legs at the knee like a lounging king and stretched languidly, arching his spine briefly and wrapping his arms around his captor’s neck to better secure his balance.

"Yes, a bit," he agreed, freeing one hand to shade his eyes as he peered up into the broken tree branches. With a hum that conveyed his supposedly-only-mild inconvenience, he sighed and laid his arm back over the other man’s shoulder. "Fortunate that you were here to ensure that I had a far more  _pleasant_  landing. To whom do I owe my thanks, Holdbrother?" 

Magnus watched the other man with open curiosity, entertained by his bravado, but for the most part assessing his expression: faces were usually extremely telling, but this man had receded back behind a mask in a matter of seconds.  It was a shame that he hadn’t adopted it straight away. He wasn’t fooled, but he found the effort rather endearing, nevertheless.  He had to give the man some credit for quick thinking.

One thing was for certain: this elf in his arms would have attacked him if it weren’t for the tree branches giving out.  He would have stolen his things at best, and killed him at worst– all of which Magnus found to be rather unappealing prospects, indeed.  Internally, he resigned to having to deal with this elf in one way or another before he progressed with his mission.

Magnus didn’t lose his benign, inquisitive expression.  There wasn’t a shred of hostility in his features, but that meant little. If anything, Magnus found the whole situation darkly amusing, and while his lips didn’t smile, his eyes danced with a hint of laughter.

 "I don’t share my title with the hopeless sort," Magnus replied evenly; not unfriendly, but still entirely dismissive.  He continued to watch the elf, surveying his convincing but (quite frankly) ridiculous performance.  He couldn’t blame him for trying, at least: on a more impressionable man, it may have very well worked. "I’ve been in need of some company, however, so this is rather convenient–"  Magnus adjusted the elf in his arms. "Stay still."

"Don’t you? Well–" Einarr paused, half-grimacing as the larger man’s arms tightened around him with the silent but implicit warning that any attempt at struggle or escape would be both unwelcome and very unwise. "That  _does_ put us at a bit of an impasse."

 

* * *

 

 

"This isn’t very  _friendly_ of you," Einarr commented loudly from a few paces behind the other Avvar. An early pheasant startled from the underbrush at the sound of his voice, breaking across their path with loud, panicked trills. Einarr watched it disappear with a quiet crash into a new patch of overgrowth with a raised eyebrow before lifting his chin to fix his glare on the other man’s back with all the single-minded focus he could muster.

(Which was quite a lot, given his complete lack of other distractions.)

His hands were bound in front of him and tight enough to chafe; there was no slack in the rope that he could pick at and work at until there was enough space for his hands to slip free. The rope was tied to the man’s belt, so there was the mortal and murder-worthy offense of being led about like a particularly brainless sort of  _dog–_ worse that his daggers were also thrust through the man’s belt like war prizes and his bow was unstrung and resting across the bastard’s shoulders like a yokel’s shepherding staff.

"After all, if this is how you treat a  _companion_ ," he continued, nose lifted haughtily in the air as he pitched his voice higher and louder to be as irritating as possible, "or your  _clanbrothers_ , more a wonder that you would have  _any_ that would claim you. You have the gall to  _bind me_ , for no  _reason–"_ Not necessarily true. "To  _drag me along to gods-know-where–"_ A viable point. "And you don’t even have the manners to carry on a  _conversation_  before you murder me terribly–" Not that Einarr was letting him get a word in edgewise either way. Not that Einarr was much interested in holding a conversation with his mark-turned-kidnapper. Not that Einarr had any plans to let himself be murdered into another statistic.

"I should mention," he added hurriedly, balking and pulling back on his bindings (which did nothing to deter his captor and served only to scrape his wrists a bit more raw), "that if you decide to murder me, you’d be solely responsible for the death of an innocent and that you’ll be forever known as the one who started a clan war for the crime of  _falling out of a tree_. I think it would go poorly on your funeral pyre. If they let you have one for shaming your clan like that–or at least I wouldn’t. But if you were to let me go  _now_ , we’d put off that whole nasty business, our clans would never have to fight–at least not over us–and you won’t be known as the arse who got offended by gravity."

He thought it best to not mention that his whole hold would probably breathe a less-than-subtle sigh of relief if he were to just disappear into the woods one day and never come back. Father would probably shrug his absence off as another case of flighty elves and their intrinsic nature, but Einarr rather thought that…perhaps at least his mother might be at least a  _little_ troubled if he were very suddenly gone without an explanation. An old woman’s tears would likely hold little sway over the rest. 

Not that  _this_ bastard needed to know any of it; Einarr sourly aimed a kick at the back of his captor's legs, sending a spray of dirty slush forward that fell far short of its target.

"Or if you are going to  _MURDER ME_ ," the words were shouted at the man’s back; these roads and pathways were well-traveled and he was nearly desperate to be heard now. "You’d pick a more _PICTURESQUE–FUCKING–LOCATION–"_

He stumbled over a tree root hidden under the cover of snow and went sprawling onto his stomach, arms wrenched painfully forward. He squirmed up to his knees, spitting filthy snow from his mouth and was ready with a sharp retort once he’d noticed the other Avvar had stopped. He squinted at the man’s back–and blinked once he saw the way blocked by a crew of shady-looking characters, all armed with mismatched gear and sporting equally smug grins.

"…I told you we should’ve taken the scenic route."


	2. Unnamed Saarebas & Kylan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay, let's hang out for a bit up north before we skip down to Orlais.

**_9:33 Dragon_ **

The waters of the small bay were womb-heat warm, shiningly kissed by Par Vollen’s sun: a harsh, all-seeing eye set in sapphire.   **  
**

Through the thick jungle overgrowth, the peaks of the old pyramids loomed, acting as a sundial to count away the hours. Imekari glanced at them from time to time, his already more nervy temperament making him more anxious as each hour lazily passed in the summer heat.

“Should we not go back?” he fretted to his two companions where they were stretched out on the sand. The two of them were naked from their most recent swim, sunning themselves like lizards. The largest of the trio lifted her head long enough to shake the sand from the ridges where her horns were growing in and rolled over to fix him with a hard stare.

“Don’t be so gutless, Imekari-Raas,” she said scornfully. “We’ll be in well before the meal horn sings and you’ll have your bread.”

“I’m not–” he began heatedly, “I don’t–”

He deflated in defeat and looked to their other companion imploringly. The final of their number had sat up, watching the two of them with dark eyes, his initiate markings glowing in the sun. He caught a handful of sand in his fist and let it trickle between his fingers as he sat silent, admiring the contrast between the bone white sand and his own copper-dark skin.

“We will go.”

“Yes Imekari-Rasaan.”

_Struggle is an illusion._

He trailed behind them at a more sedate pace as they raced from the beach, white sand kicked up in shining arcs by their heels. Their laughter became distant as they crashed through the emerald jungle growth, cutting through to the main road.

_The tide rises, the tide falls._

Rasaan paused at the edge of the jungle and shaded his eyes with one hand as he looked back towards the beach. Already the sea was moving in to erase the signs of their presence that day; it was transient. It did not matter. Both are true.

_But the sea is changeless._

The bronze-enameled walls of Qunandar shone in the late afternoon sun as he sped through the wilds after his friends, the promised meal horn echoing through the air over the cries of the gulls as they took wing. At the gates stood his friends, bouncing from foot to foot in impatience, waving their arms and calling for him to hurry. He smiled and, feeling suddenly lighter, ran faster towards them.

_There is nothing to struggle against._

 

* * *

 

_**9:40 Dragon** _

Saarebas startled awake, eyes rolling in panic as he grasped the collar around his neck, pulling on it uselessly as its heated edges blistered the skin of his throat. The only sound that escaped past his sewn-shut lips was muffled gargling; it became a single quiet moan before it lapsed into nothing. The scent of stale blood, burnt flesh, and acrid gouts of gaatlok fog hung heavy in the air; the customary song of the Seheron jungle’s night insects and howling monkeys was silent.

The weight of Arvaarad’s neatly-hewn corpse was heavy across his chest.

His staff lay in shattered pieces on the scorched ground, haloing around his head.

Arvaarad’s blood had soaked into his clothing, thick and wet and so cold against Saarebas’s skin. Slowly, mindful of his own injuries, he pushed Arvaarad’s mangled body off of his own and sat up. He was wrist-deep in rancid mud, churned into a paste with blood and pulverised flesh.

The golden binding rod lay a scant metre from his feet, half-sunken into the mud with a red hand print smeared down its centre.

 _Fog warriors_ , he thought blankly, the words coming to him as if from far away.  _Or monsters_ \--

One of them had seemed to glow with power, snarling like a beast as he crashed through the ranks like a breaking wave, his massive sword butchering his enemies.

He shifted weakly in the mud, struggling to his knees as his collar cooled in the night air. The rest of the karataam--

The words of the Qun, half-obscured by the watery moonlight, seemed to stare back at him accusingly from where they were carved on the inside of his mask. The chains hanging from his wrists seemed to clink in the quiet like a warning as he reached out hesitantly. The next karataam patrol would pass by in the morning once theirs had failed to report in past moonrise; it would be so easy, then, to have that choice taken from his hands. To let himself sink into the peace of nothing like the rest of his compatriots.

_Existence is a choice. There is no chaos in the world, only complexity._

And yet…and yet–

Suffering is a choice, and we can refuse it.

**_There is nothing to struggle against._ **

 

* * *

 

**_Two months after_ **

The barge sailed into the harbour of Kont-arr with little fanfare and only the slightly-drunken yells of her captain to guide her into her berth. Saarebas remained silent in his darkened corner belowdecks; the voyage across the Venification Sea from Seheron had been too long and too arduous for him to be caught in a Rivaini port and sent back now. He ducked behind a tall stack of crates as the hold door swung open with a loud creak and men poured in to begin emptying it of its burden. With something akin to shock, he recognised other Qunari– _Tal-Vashoth_ –amongst the men, many with their horns hewn off, shouldering the heavy loads silently. This would be easier, then.

He trailed a finger over the heavy metal cord threaded through his lips and paused.

Not easy at all; he’d just have to be more careful.

It was the work of a moment (and more of the subtle magic that he’d had time to practice in the long, dark weeks) to slip in with the Tal-Vashoth, keeping his head to hide his stitched mouth bowed low as he heaved a tall stack of bagged rye meal into his arms. The Tal-Vashoth foreman only lifted his chin in acknowledgement and waved Saarebas forward and up the gangplank, pointing towards the bustling harbour and speaking a few words in an odd patois of Qunlat and Rivaini.

Freedom was close enough to smell, and it stank of piss and rancid fish.

 _This isn’t how it went_ , a rich voice seemed to whisper in his ear. Languid arms draped over his shoulders as he fell into line with the other labourers, hauling their loads to a waiting warehouse. Just a few moments more, he willed himself, a few hours longer of hiding and then he could escape under the cover of night.

All at once, the bustle of the harbour froze. He bumped into the back of the Tal-Vashoth in front of him and flinched as the other’s head rolled back on a loose neck to regard him with one blank, glowing eye.

 _You’re being unkind_. That same rich, feminine voice spoke again, echoing through the deadened silence. Saarebas stood rooted to the spot as every eye turned to him, glowing with a demon’s light, faces expressionless.  _After all, haven’t I been listening to you all this time?_

The sensation of arms lifted slowly from his shoulders, replaced by the feeling of sharp nails dragging slowly down his back, leaving trails of goosebumps behind. He blinked once and just as suddenly there was a…a woman or something like it in front of him, bare except for her jewelry, giving him a feline smile as she spread her hands over his chest and pressed against him lazily, pink skin flushed.

 _Wouldn’t it have been nice_ , she said, watching the glint of her rings as she traced delicate whorls on his collarbone,  _if it had been this easy?_

He stared down at her wordlessly, mind ablaze with panic. She pouted up at him, full lips parting on a tsk.

 _You’re supposed to say yes,_  she chided him. She drummed her fingernails on his breastbone in a slow, patient rhythm, tilting her head as if listening to something from far away.

 _You’re dreaming, you know,_  she said finally.  _But you are here, with me. In the Fade. It’s much nicer, other parts of it. I can make it however you like, if you tell me what you want. You want nice dreams, don’t you?_

The harbour flickered, as if the sun had gone out and flashed back on, like a guttering candle flame. In the flashes between the darkness, the ruined buildings smoked and embers of burnt wood glowed red. A child’s abandoned rag doll lay in the middle of the shattered cobblestone street.

No.

 _Yes_ , she said quietly, pressing her lips over his heart and trailing her way up his throat, murmuring the words against his lips.  _I think you do. You didn’t want this to happen, did you? I’ll take it away, if you want me to. I’ll make it so it never happened. You’ll have such lovely dreams then, if you’ll just say yes._

“You can’t make them alive again,” he heard himself whisper hoarsely. The image of the harbour flickered again as the cobblestones beneath his feet turned into a bubbling mud. He sank into it, knee-deep, unable even to struggle. The demon regarded him with an almost-amused expression as he sank deeper, and cupped his cheek with an almost maternal hand.

 _No_ , she agreed.  _But it’s enough that you want me to._

_Sleep well. Wake up._

He blinked at the water-stained plaster walls and pushed himself upright from his pallet on the floor. Again with this. He could never tell if drinking the tavern’s swill made the dreams feel closer or further away. Maybe it wasn’t worth it, he decided, if it poisoned him into being unable to move in his own head. But she was getting more insistent every time she appeared. She-- _the demon,_ he forced himself to think--had saved him once, it was true. She'd given him strength in Kont-arr when he'd been caught escaping. As payment, she strode through his dreams at night, pulling the bloody memories of ravaged buildings and ruined corpses behind her like a regal train and trilling in delight at his fresh pain. She had cut the collar from the neck to fashion herself a chained bangle and eased the cording from his lips with a gentle hand (the other she had braced over his heart, her talons cutting deep into his skin). 

She would be collecting the rest of his debt soon.

He closed his hand into a tight fist, almost wincing as a crackle of static electricity sparked across his knuckles in bright purple. More bothered than he thought, then. He took deep breaths as he counted the still-unfamiliar constellations outside the attic room’s opened window, marking the time as mid-evening by the position of the first moon. It wasn’t too late, perhaps, to beg some food off of the tavern’s kitchen elves.

It was unusually loud in the common area as he made his way downstairs and took a seat at the bar as unobtrusively as someone his size could; the benefit was, however, that his being so massive generally tended to discourage all but the most determined of brawlers. The general uproar tonight seemed to be over a newcomer at the gaming tables, earning a king’s ransom in bets over whatever _bas_ card game the humans were playing. Montperrault's sole tavern had its share of colourful patrons, but it was always the same faces.

(As an unspoken rule, only the humans were allowed at the gaming tables. The elves huddled together in one far corner, with a careful space separating the city elves from the Dalish. A handful of dwarves gathered around another table, regarding each other with what looked like suspicion as they poured each other drinks. Odd.)

Easy enough to ignore them when they all seemed to be yelling in the fluid tones of Orlesian. He could hear some Fereldan Common threaded throughout, but he was barely fluent enough to ask for food and board as it was. The gaming party grew louder and more bawdy, switching from cards to darts to some form of drunken charades as he worked his way slowly through the cook’s terrible stale bread and even worse stewed…something. The shouting worked its way into a fever-pitch until very suddenly, a thrown tankard smashed into the side of his head, showering him with stale beer.

“Oh  _fuck_ ,” someone said distinctly.

 

* * *

 

Another win. Kylan guided the collection of copper and silver towards his side of the table, away from the forlorn eyes of Alleyn ‘The Sly’, as he had so introduced himself.  The Sly’s face had morphed from pink to red to purple in a matter of seconds, and his eyes darted accusingly toward Kylan.  Another week’s worth of pay, down the drain to this abhorrent wandering thief.  His wife would have his head.

Kylan smiled.

"Shall we have another round?  Drinks are on me." Kylan handled a copper piece between his thumb and forefinger, before flicking it up into the air to then catch it again.  He handed the money to a hovering bar maiden, who had been inspecting the game along with the rest of a modest crowd.  He had proved quite the customer tonight; it was a wonder the man hadn’t fallen from his seat in intoxication.  Many commoners watched in awe at his consistent deftness– if something was amiss, no one was able to pick up on any faults in Kylan’s charade.  Regardless, suspicion still lingered.

"You’re _cheatin_ ’."

Kylan paused, and he stared at The Sly with open amusement.  His smile was calm.

"That’s a rather bold statement."

"I do beg you pardon, Master Roux," he sneered, "but you’ve won  _every single round_  of this game tonight.  That simply isn’t possible."  The Sly’s purple taint had bottled down to his neck and had his ears ablaze.

"Perhaps I’m simply good at the game."

"It’s a game of  _chance,"_  The Sly spat, evidently losing his patience now.

"No," Kylan replied simply, his own patience as sturdy as it was at the start of the night.  "It’s a game of  _character,_  of reading and knowing your opponent, The Sly – speaking of which, I would change that name if I were you.  It gives away your intentions with hopeless abandon."

     That had done it.  The Sly stood up with passionate gusto, roughly bumping the table in the process.  Tankards and drink fell to the floor with a crash as he yelled in Kylan’s face.

"You’re a no-good, blasted crook of a thief!"

The small crowd went silent, and otherwise apathetic pub-dwellers turned their heads to observe the rowdiness.  Kylan maintained his composure, watching The Sly carefully.  A moment passed, and then another.

Kylan clicked his tongue once, almost resignedly.  A part of him knew this would happen, but the gambler in him couldn’t help but test the waters.  He had received his unspoken wish– things were about to get interesting.

"Are you happy now?  You’ve caused a scene." He gave the Sly a look of paternal reproach.

Shouts rang out as The Sly lurched across the table, his over-sized hands looking ready to snap Kylan’s neck between them.  But Kylan was faster.  Before The Sly could reach him, he was out of his seat and several steps away from the table.  The crowd gasped and moved away to give this inevitable fight some space, creating a distant but curious ring.

Kylan wouldn’t reach for his knives, not yet, but before he could plan out his next course of action, one of The Sly’s friends had thrown a heavy tankard toward his head.  At such an awkward angle all Kylan could do was knock it away with his forearm, sending the tankard flying.

They couldn’t do anything but watch.  The tankard had hit Kylan with exemplary force – it would surely bruise him – and diverted its course straight for the giant, quiet Qunari.

"Oh,  _fuck,"_ some enterprising wit said bleakly.

Suddenly the tavern was in uproar.  Loyalties had men at each other’s throats, and even those who were unaligned found themselves either willingly or reluctantly caught up in the fray.  Unfortunately for Kylan, he was a stranger and not a regular like The Sly was, and the only friends he had were the friendly but flimsy acquaintances he had made that night.  Such weak ties were easily broken, as it turned out.  But other men had lost to The Sly before, for he was the reigning champion before Kylan came and took his place.  They were taking advantage of this situation as best they could now that people couldn’t tell friend from foe.

The odds were certainly not in Kylan’s favour, and his intoxicated mind tried hard to calculate the best course of action as several men closed in on him.  The knives burnt at his hips and his extremities tingled, but he didn’t have to shed blood with these commoners.  He’d bloody his own knuckles, instead.

 

* * *

 

The Qunari glanced down at the emptied tankard as it clattered to the floor and spun in a tight circle before it disappeared, accidentally kicked away into the crowd by another shouting human joining the fracas. The bitter ale dripped down the side of his face, sliding over the line of his jaw and pooling in his lap. He stared sourly at the spreading stain; these were his only trousers and now they were soaked and stank of cheap human tavern beer.

A spark of violet static danced over his knuckles and itched in his palms before he managed to quash his quick flash of temper. He set his jaw and turned his head just enough to watch the brawl from the corner of his eye, lest the  _basra_ venture too close again.

The cause of all the trouble, a human man with clothes that were just this side of  _too_ artfully road-worn, lay at the centre of a knot of other men, a teeming mass of drunkenly thrown punches and loud howls of pointless rage. It would never be his business what the  _basra_ foolishly got themselves into, he mused, especially if the worse that he himself ended up was a bit damp but ultimately unnoticed. Enough of the nearly-sober-enough ones skirted him warily even as they brawled, half-expecting some kind of furious Tal-Vashoth rampage. That was…insulting, he decided, plucking the word from the air. When one considered how much less civilised both humans and Tal-Vashoth were in comparison to the followers of the Qun–

And so he told himself, until he observed one _bas_ sneaking up behind the troublemaker with a wickedly curved knife held low, hidden, aimed at the man’s ribs–

Without even knowing how, he found himself on his feet, one arm outstretched and his palm stinging with the aftershocks of lightning magic. The would-be assassin lay curled on the ground, smoking slightly and moaning in pain, the knife dropped to the floor.

He gazed down at the whimpering human, expression impassive as his mind worked busily, railing at him and beating him with barbed whips of self-recrimination behind his blank stare. Slowly he let his hand fall to his side, clenched tight into a fist to hide its trembling. 

It was weakness and weakness was death.

The fight had come to a shocked pause as the entire tavern went silent.

‘ _Magus,’_ an Orlesian woman shrieked at last. ‘ _Magus!’_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Imekari: Child.
> 
> Raas: "Nothing;" used as a hyphenated adjective. (Example: Imekari-raas would mean "Child Nothing.")
> 
> Rasaan: "Emissary," or "chosen heir;'" the Ariqun's successor, and as such, acts as their representative abroad. Also serves as the spiritual adviser to the Arishok, and accompanies him on expeditions.
> 
> Arvaarad: "One who holds back evil;" a Qunari who watches over the saarebas (Qunari mages) and hunts Tal-Vashoth.
> 
> Karataam: An infantry platoon. 
> 
> Tal-Vashoth: "True Grey Ones." Former members of the Qunari who have departed or been exiled from their people and home. Many are violent rebels and turn against the Qunari, and are a menace in the north where they raid human and Qunari settlements alike. Others simply want to live their own life.
> 
> Bas: Literally, "thing;" foreign to the Qun; purposeless. Often used as a neutral term to describe non-Qunari people. Also used after a weapon name to denote it is intended for mages. (Example: Saartoh-Bas Kos Katoh)
> 
> Basra: Rude term for non-Qunari people.
> 
> Magus: Fren--ORLESIAN for "mage"


End file.
